Sunday, March 21, 2010

When was the last time you made Boston baked beans? It's so easy to forget about the classics when brainstorming side dish options for regular weekday fare. You happily make these luscious legumes for those mid-summer picnics and potlucks, but why are they so seldom on the regular menu?

The beauty of serving a side dish of such renown is you can toss it next to some nondescript sausages, or slice of ham and still have what feels like a special meal. I'm sure most of us associate baked beans with pleasurable experiences, thus it passes the only real "comfort food" test of authenticity.

While some of you more cynical readers may think this post was just an easy way to test one of the classic American recipes going in the cookbook, and at the same time, a way to solicit some witty comments from Scott from Boston, well, okay…that's just about right. Enjoy!

19 comments:

My recipe is very similar (just the right amount of brown sugar and molasses so it's not overly sweet)but I also like to add a little bit of tomato paste to cut out the sweetness and a pinch of ground cloves. It makes your kitchen smell SOOOO good.

My twist is to use smoked ham instead of bacon. It gives that same wonderful smokey flavour but also something to bite on.

I grew up in a big family & my mom made everything from scratch - I never knew how good I had it or why all my friends wanted to eat at my house until I got older. I thought everybody's mom cooked that way. This is similar to my mom's recipe, but she always made a massive amount in a pressure cooker. Beans & homemade bread was dinner for our family pretty often.

Just voted for your blog over at Savuer - I 'm a frequent stalker but don't comment enough. Love your blog & have tried several of the recipes - my family thanks you. :)

Adding baking soda to the beans speeds the cooking time, as does molasses. Baking soda is alkaline, and molasses contains calcium - both of which aid in dissolving cellulose in the beans' cell walls. Science!

For a more southern Appalachian version, substitute sorghum molasses and salt pork, and play bluegrass music while it cooks.

In Ireland, they only cook 239 beans at the same time. Why? Because if you add any more, it'd be too farty...

The title of this recipe really should've been: Bringin' The Thunder!!!(btw, Ghanima, that reeeeally was an excellent one, but after making this recipe I'd be pretty careful about stealing anyone's "thunder").

Well Chef John, I've got nuttin'. Beans. Jeesh. What, are you still holding out on your peanut butter and Fluff recipe?

Gaby, I don't know what Chef John would say, him being the real chef (and me just being a kitchen junkie by night and a geek by day) but I'd say break out whatever good prepared mustard you have in the fridge and use the pintos! In fact I think it would be interesting to try, being from the Southwest myself where pinto beans are a sacred thing.